New Appeal from the Forgotten Coast

Biloxi, Mississippi

Executive Notes
Mrs. Sharon Hanshaw
Executive Director
Coastal Women for Change
http://www.cwcbiloxi.org/index.htm



It is often said that just an encouraging word can make the difference. I want to foster among our women the willingness and openness to be encouraging to each other and those around us. Hopefully the words you find here will always have the ability to do just that. And as often as I am led here is where you will always find the desires of my heart for CWC and the community we serve.

Those of us struggling to rebuild the Gulf Coast face an overwhelming challenge and an unprecendented dilemma:

How do we maintain the inner strength to move forward when we are still coping with having lost almost everything we ever had?

Make no mistake about it: Our community is still living in shock, more than a year after Katrina destroyed our houses, schools, churches, and businesses. Thousands of good-hearted volunteers have flooded into the area. Without them, we would feel so isolated and forgotten that we would be suffering even greater collective depression than is already the case.

In order to solve our dilemma, we need to muster the collective strength to achieve affordable community housing, day care, and employment opportunities. We need to organize ourselves to speak with one voice at local council meetings -- as well as to the regional, state and national decision-making bodies.

We know that far more is at stake than our own individual lives. It is the future for our children and grandchildren that matters now. How will we ensure that there will be a place for them in a rebuilt Gulf Coast?

It is clear that the casinos and big businesses and land developers will all have a secure place in the new Gulf Coast. But what about us? What about the people whose communities have been destroyed, who now huddle in FEMA trailers, tents, cars and broken-down buildings, wondering how we will ever again be able to afford to own or even rent a home?

Coastal Women for Change is here to represent and organize residents to make sure our voice is heard by the policy-makers. They must not simply take us for granted, and dismiss us as irrelevant. The old Gulf Coast economy was built by our labor, often underpaid and exploited by unfair work practices.

It is our history here that gives us our right to now be heard. We represent the present and the past; our children and grandchildren represent the future. We are not going to leave, and neither are they.

In their name, we demand to be heard.